Unwanted Complexity

Ok, so you can have one electric motor powering just the left or right wheel to reduce complexity :-) Left one has an advantage of more likely being on the part of pavement with some traction. Right one has an advantage to help in equal left/right weight distribution assuming the driver is always heavier than the passenger o? having a typical scenario of absent passenger in mind.

really I need some power to the front just to get unstuck: no need for an oversized battery of a hybrid. Just a rear wheel driver which the "unstuck" enhancement: an electric motor front wheel assist seems like the simplest if not the cheapest way to accomplish this.

Besides, if you'd like it could be used instead of the alternator, thus, hopefully introducing no new parts, just relocating an existing one into a wheel.

Do alternators have clutches like starters to disengage them when not needed to prevent battery overcharging or that is handled differently?

The regulator takes care of that by varying the field voltage. It takes next to no power to turn an alternator with no voltage on the field, so no clutch is needed.

nate

Hmm, as I believe I said I want the gasoline engine to drive rear wheels directly. If occasional power delivery to the front with electric motors makes a car a golf cart I'm puzzled by your comment.

This is an auxiliary "get unstuck in snow/mud" device I'm proposing not the primary means to propel the car. The rear axle must be powered at all times.

That sure would be simple but I was thinking that you'd need a differential to split the power to two wheels. It might be simpler and lighter to use 2 motors instead.

No clutch on the alternators. My guess is that the load from an alternator never gets that high. You can hear when the alternator is charging the battery sometimes. Usually it's just after you've started the engine.

Oddly enough you don't need clutches on electric motors either. The full torque is available from a dead stop. That's my understanding, but I could be wrong.

Right. Or two pancake motors driving the rear wheels, doing away completely with the mechanical differential. You could even have positraction in software and some degree of steering control by differentially driving the pair. Fewer actual things to go wrong that way.

Reducing the number of moving parts is always a win to my mind. Of course, I don't work for GM....

--scott

The electric car will greatly simplify making a car because the drive train will be modular, and driven by software. You could use the same set ups for sports cars, muscle cars and family cars. Just change the software. Maybe they'll bolt on a high wattage motor or 2 additional motors for expensive cars but my guess is that the controller would be pretty much the same unit for a broad range of cars.

One electric motor with the shaft that extends out on both sides of the motor.One of the shafts connected to a jack shaft.No differential needed.According to an article I once saw in Popular Science magazine back in the 1960s. cuhulin

Sounds like something out of the 1860s. What happens if you need to do a turn?

Sure, but that's already kind of the case for gasoline engines, except when the manufacturer does something silly. Pick this engine, that transmission, the standard ECU, drop the software for the combination in.

In reality it's often not like that, but that's not for technical reasons.

--scott

My belief is that if you have a software-driven drivetrain, you can program a car to act like anything under the sun, from a small 4 cylinder to a turbo-V6 using the exact same hardware. The advantage in manufacturing is obvious. OTOH, you probably could program a V6 to act like a small 4 cylinder but that's a little wasteful and inefficient.

but that's exactly the kind of concept used with manufacturers like frod and gm on their cast crank engines. they have to be de-tuned about 30% compared to their forged crank brethren of the same displacement.

I understand that engines are de-tuned to increase longevity, however, it's a lot easier if you can do this without changing the hardware. My guess is that these "artificial" HP ratings will be done solely for marketing considerations.

inferior fatigue life is no "marketing consideration".

Which would you prefer to have to work on, a 1962 Ford Falcon or a new, or a few years old car? Give me the Ford Falcon any day!

Maybe some day I will start restoring my 1948 Willys Jeep.That will be a pleasure to work on.I don't intend to restore it to mint condition though. cuhulin

Honestly, I dont prefer to work on anything anymore. That is one reason I would not buy a GM on a bet.

I wouldn't know anything about that. I'm just guessing that you'll be charged a premium for more performance and it ain't gonna cost the manufacturers a penny, at least for the power part.

I used to know a guy that had one of those. He put in a Chevy small block V8 in it. He painted it black but it was too glossy so he hit it with coarse sandpaper. What a deathtrap! My guess is that he probably ended up crashing and burning while trying to avoid hitting something on the road. That's always a problem.

yup, you got it.

but that's always been the case - "performance" parts, in quantity to the manufacturer, cost hardly anything more than standard parts, yet finished "performance" vehicle price premiums are disproportionate and significant.

"jim beam" wrote

True with most items, but especially true with cars. As you move up the trim levels, I figure you are lucky to get 50¢ worth of goods for every dollar spent.

The only thing that seems to have come down in price is leather seating. Years ago, it was very expensive, but today, it is common on the better trim packages, even on lower end cars. Probably more hides available since McDonalds is selling billions of burgers a year.